Love Heals

You’re tired. You’re tired of being anxious, trying to control everything, looking for happiness outside of yourself, looking for someone else to make you happy. You’re tired of closing off your heart, playing small, turning away instead of “turning toward.” You are tired of looking and searching..and believing you are not enough — enough for your partner, children, work…whatever!

People come to me and want to know how to heal their broken hearts, relationships, bodies, and pasts. They are waking up and they realize that something needs to shift.

The answer is simple. But not always easy – for any of us.

What heals?

Love heals.  It’s that simple.  Yet we tend to over-complicate it and look for solutions to our heart aches, worries, and problems  “outside ourselves.”  We busy ourselves (and exhaust ourselves) in this endless  search for happiness, for feeling we are “enough”, for feeling like we belong. We try to change our bodies, thoughts, and everyone around us. We get demanding, try to control our lives and others.  We get full of rage when it all doesn’t work out the way we are planning – dang it.

Yet to really shift our suffering, we have to turn inward to our own hearts and bodies.  Love dispels our suffering – loving attention and spaciousness to “be” and “allow.”

This isn’t some new-age B.S. Neuroscience now supports that practices, such as loving kindness, do in fact alter how our brains fire, our reactions/responses to life’s events, and create a sense of spaciousness and happiness.

Loving kindness meditation is about returning to a deep sense of happiness – one that isn’t based on the weather systems of our emotions or the ever-changing circumstances in our lives.  It’s about reconditioning ourselves from believing that happiness is “out there.” It’s about gathering all that energy spent looking for happiness  and returning it to us.

Loving kindness calms the nervous system, connects us, softens us, empowers us and strengthens us.  It dispels anger and resentment.  It is the basis for waking up and being in healthy relationships.

Loving kindness is a concentration practice.  We bring our attention back again and again to the phrases that we repeat.  We practice non-judgment and gentleness.  We have courage and we are disciplined.

There are many versions and different phrases that have been used over time.  Here are the ones my teacher taught me.  Use phrases that resonate with you.

Typically, the six different “types” of people we send loving kindness to are:

Self
Benefactor
Friend/ a dear one
Neutral person
Difficult person
All living beings

Here are the phrases (again, use phrases that resonate with you). These are easy to memorize and practice anywhere, anytime:

May I be safe.
May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I live with ease.

Briefly, here is a practice you can do any time during the day:

Sit in a comfortable position.

Close your eyes or soften the eyes.

Take a few mindful breaths – in and out.

You may want imagine the in-breath as renewing and the out-breath as letting go/releasing.

Breathe into and from your heart for a few breaths.

Begin with your own self.

Repeat the phrases slowly, imagining yourself as safe, happy, healthy and living with ease.

Take breaths between each phrase.

Notice the sensations in your body as you slowly repeat each phrase.

When you start to judge yourself, tighten up, and engage in old patterns of thinking, that’s fine! Acknowledge all that.  Give all that loving kindness, too. This posture of “allowing all that is” creates a lot of spaciousness.

Then move on to each person:

a benefactor (someone who has loved you, supported you.  Even a pet!)
a friend (someone you know well)
a neutral person (like the clerk at the grocery store),
a difficult person (choose someone who mildly triggers you at first!)
all living beings.

Take your time.

Do the practice with mindfulness.  Return to your breath as an anchor.

Acknowledge whatever arises: boredom, excitement, loving feeling, muscles tensing, muscles relaxing, anger, clinging, desire to push away.  Welcome it all with kindness.

At the end, take a few mindful breaths, notice the sensations in your body, bow to your own self for having the courage to do this, and slowly return to your daily life.

Two questions I often get:

Why a neutral person?  We often don’t “see the other.”  This meditation wakes us up to see that all beings want the same things as we do – to feel safe, happy, healthy and living with ease.

Why a difficult person?  In doing this meditation, we learn that love is not contingent upon the actions or attitude of others.  We recognize that any resentment (anger, rage) we hold is causing us suffering.  We recognize that we can send well wishes to others and still decide to have healthy boundaries in our relationships.  We can choose to never see this difficult person again and we can still wish them safety, happiness, health, and living with ease.

This is big-time healing stuff, friends.  Be gentle. Go slow.  Practice often. 

Questions?  Ask me!  I may not have the answer, but I am great at accompany folks in discovering  their own truths within themselves!

A great resource I’d recommend:

Sharon Salzberg’s book, The Kindness Handbook.
This is a beautiful, simple read.  It’s my “go to” book on lovingkindness.  Sharon is a renowned meditation teacher.

Blessings,

Lisa A. McCrohan
MA, LCSW-C, RYT
Compassion Coach

** I’m a Compassion Coach.  I work with folks who want to live with more delight, compassion, and connection in their everyday lives.  Don’t live in Frederick, MD, or the DC area?  No problema!  Over the phone, skype, or in person, I offer mindful and compassion coaching.   I am also a body-centered psychotherapist and yoga teacher offering individual sessions and group workshops and retreats.  Visit the Barefoot Barn for more information on our services or contact me with questions, to schedule a time to talk, or learn more.

Unexpected Blessings

Bolder, gentler, slower movin’, hip swirlin’, clearer, delight-filled me.

(Many of you have asked how this whole “brain injury” has changed me.  Here you go. I hope this resonates with you, encourages you, uplifts you, and empowers you to live with a deeper sense of delight, compassion,and connection in your everyday life.  It’s a long one, so get a cup of tea and enjoy…)

Many of you know that I fell at the end of January. I stepped on to a treadmill that I thought wasn’t moving, but it was. It threw me off and a crash, boom, smack later, I was down with a concussion. Through the whole ordeal of the last few months, I’ve learned A LOT about brain injuries. But what I’ve really learned (and embodied, and struggled with, and surrendered into) is this:

As Rumi says, “the cure for the pain is the pain.” I get it. The cure for the the dizziness WAS the dizziness.

I needed things to be swirled around, shaken up and mixed up in order to see, surrender, lighten up, and embrace my life and its treasures with a greater sense of delight, deep compassion, and true connection.

As serendipitously things often happen, while I was right in the thick of this brain injury, David Mercier sent me his book, “A Beautiful Medicine.”  It is still by my bedside.

David  has been an acupuncturist for thirty years on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  But he wasn’t always an acupuncturist.  He used to be a Buddhist monk.  A young David sold everything and set off to Sri Lanka to be a monk.  Ironically enough, whenever he meditated, he got a blaring ache in the middle of his forehead.  And as I’ve shared with many of you about his journey, um, what’s a Buddhist monk in training supposed to do all day?  Meditate!  After years of suffering and with his health failing, he returned to the States. And what unfolded is a story to read – how he healed and how, now, he has spent the last 30 years helping people through acupuncture and coaching (32,000 sessions!)

His story totally inspired me. Once I could actually handle reading again, I’d read a few pages of his glorious book.  One of the lines from his book continues to speak to me again and again: “the symptoms are messengers.”  They aren’t something to be resisted, pushed away, or gotten rid of.

How radical!  Actually BEFRIEND our symptoms?!  Believe that they are pointing us in the direction of our healing?!

David’s poetic words and stories encouraged me to put my Buddhist meditation in to practice: embrace the dizziness. Befriend it.

So I did.

I thought I had lived a pretty awake like before the injury. No, not perfectly (is there ever such thing?!). But truly, I felt even before this injury that, like Thomas Merton, my desire to deeply listen to the Divine within me and more deeply align myself with the Divine did/does in fact please the Divine.

But as we know, there are always layers to peel away. Layers of fear, old habits, old beliefs, old voices in our head that no longer serve us. And that all came up when I fell.

“The fall” was/is an opportunity for me to totally surrender to the medicine of dizziness. To allow things to be shaken up, spinning around, and unsettled. To rest. To receive the help of others (how hard is that for all of us?!). To reorient my life around what deeply matters most.

I found that if I resisted and tried to force my body (and brain!) to do something it couldn’t do, I suffered. Instead…instead if I just embraced, even befriended, the dizziness, I didn’t suffer. Nothing externally changed. The reality was I had to go slower, move slower, and rest. BUT I was content. I was at ease.

And what is happening now? A new boldness has emerged. A renewed vivaciousness for life has emerged. A new deeeeep appreciation for the gifts in my everyday life has emerged.

I make time to heal — heal my head, hold my daughter and her skinned knees from a fall on the concrete, listen to my son share something that is troubling him.

I make time to love — love the person I am with, drop the “to do”, and embrace what is most important.

I delight in the simpliest of things – the way my daughter pronounces her “r’s”, tells me she “loves the feel of me,” and the way my son, now six years old, pauses to ask me about my day and plays jokes and started up his own detective agency, complete with business cards!

I have more compassion. Compassion for my body’s limitations – like in Zumba — I just can’t do the turns and jumps. Rather than “shoulding” my body into doing them, I give some shake to my hips instead while the class does its turns. I have more compassion for the needs of my kiddos – the everyday ways they need me to cut their food, hold their hurts, and bathe their bodies. I have more compassion and gratitude for my husband, Brian, and all the ways he silently cares for me and adores me. I have more patience with others and compassion for their need to be heard, held, and accompanied.

I appreciate my connections. So many people rallied to care for us – go grocery shopping, bring us meals, call us, help out with home repairs (did I mention in all this we had a toilet flood and we are still dealing with repairs?!). I reminded of how we all need each other — and this sense of interconnectedness brings tears to my eyes.

I get frustrated. I get angry. I get totally annoyed. But I find that I am just, well, more awake. Softer, slower, bolder, more empowered, more aware of my power, and more aware of the power of surrendering to whatever is happening in this very moment.

I am more aware of how our brokenness heals us.

This is the gift of falling.

Here is a poem I wrote last night about where I am now…

The Gift of the Fall
By Lisa A. McCrohan

Lookin’ up
lookin’ real
lovin’ every swirl and twirl
and dance of dizziness

yes, even the dizziness.

Lookin’ right here
lookin’ at him
lookin’ at her
lookin’ at Brian watching me be

me
however I am
whatever I need.

Lovin’ the bold beat of my heart
lovin’ the deep clarity of my eyes
lovin’ the sweet swirls of my hips
and the tenderness of my lips.

Makin’ time for love
makin’ time for rest
makin’ time to let it all be

lettin’ all that healing soak in

just being right here
laying next to my baby
softly drifting off to sleep
with work to do but I let it be.

Lovin’ even the gift of uncertainity
lovin’ the path of doing just the
next right thing

which is laying here
with my hand on your heart -
Listening.
Listening.

Lisa A. McCrohan, © 2013

———–
Merton’s Prayer

* MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, “Thoughts in Solitude”
© Abbey of Gethsemani

——————–

If you find yourself suffering, in pain, in any way, can you embrace it? Can you allow it all just to be?  Sounds CRAZY!  I know.  But can you offer yourself an ounce compassion?  Can you stop for one moment and hit the “pause” button on resisting, trying to make it “go away,” change it, shift it, manipulate it?  Just for a moment.  Can you fathom the belief: “if I could possibly fathom befriending whatever is in pain in me, that I will suffer less???”

I’m totally beside you, dear ones!

And if you are on the up-and-up, can you count your blessings?  Can you look back and see how the divine – or whatever  name you use – had a lovely hand in making something beautiful out of the unexpected pain??

THANK YOU to all of you who desire to live with delight, compassion, and connection in your everyday life.  Thank you for sharing your words of such sweet kindness when something I write resonates with you – and for sharing these words of encouragement and hope and inspiration with your clients, patients, friends, and dear ones.  Truly this is how we help to heal this world.

Blessings,

Lisa A. McCrohan
MA, LCSW-C, RYT
Compassion Coach

** I’m a Compassion Coach.  I work with folks who want to live with more delight, compassion, and connection in their everyday lives.  Don’t live in Frederick, MD, or the DC area?  No problema!  Over the phone, skype, or in person, I offer mindful and compassion coaching.   I am also a body-centered psychotherapist and yoga teacher offering individual sessions and group workshops and retreats.  Visit the Barefoot Barn for more information on our services or contact me with questions, to schedule a time to talk, or learn more.

The courage to heal

A few times a year, our church weaves into the mass a time of “anointing the sick.” Anyone who is hurting, in any way, is invited to come forward. The priest and deacon take their time. They lay their hands on the person’s head and they anoint the person’s forehead with oil. They speak a prayer privately as the congregation sings and “holds the space.”

It’s a time of bodies being blessed. It’s a time of remembering – the fragility of the body, the tenacity of hope, and the need for community. It’s a time of having the courage to step forward, announcing with their silent but visual presence that one wants to be healed…and surrendering.

This past Sunday, we had the anointing of the sick.

I sat there watching as folks from the pews got up and stepped forward. I wanted to go up. I wanted, wanted, wanted to. But I didn’t.

I never do. I never stand up and walk to the front of the church.  And I’m sad about that.

No, I don’t have cancer or a tumor; I don’t struggle with addiction; I don’t have a mental illness.  But I do desire what so many of us do — to be held and healed, to have our brokenness acknowledged and seen. Whatever that brokenness is that we all have.

You don’t have to believe that there is healing (which is different from “cure”) going on with the “laying on of hands.” Healing happens in having the courage to acknowledge and say, “I feel broken”  and we welcome that brokenness with the tenderness of a mother comforting a hurting child.

Healing happens when we have the courage to be vulnerable and share our brokenness with another person.

Healing happens when we finally proclaim and ask for what we have longed for – maybe for decades.  Healing happens when we finally say “YES” to that longing – yes to its presence (and residence) within us, yes to the Divine forces that have so desired to hold that longing with us and soothe it.

Healing happens when we ask for what we need and fold into the arms that can and want to hold us.

Maybe me not getting up in front of the congregation this past Sunday was then a prompt to now go before my husband and my mom, two of the most beautiful, loving people in my life and say, “Hold me, please.  Just because.”  I’ve been too strong lately.  Too “independent.”  Too “do it on my own.”  I need to acknowledge that I feel broken at times and be ok with being vulnerable and broken before another.  And allow them to hold me.

Like so many of us, I often do a lot of the “holding.”  I’ve been great at that my whole life.  I do it for a profession.  But I can easily get caught up in being the one “listening” and “about the other person.”  I, too, need to have the courage to ask for someone to do the holding.  And I am blessed to have a mom and a husband that are awesome at that.  And long to do just that – hold me.